Mark Rober is being used to talk about the way that some Tech Optimism is bound up with replacing humans with machines and not presenting any alternatives for those Humans, but being REALLY excited about it anyway.
#WritingFromIsolationWard
Category: Commentary
Death of the Author
Watching This video again reminded me of an exercise from Creative Writing that was at the time just intolerable and exciting all at once. Peer Reading.
Every day we would be presented with a writing prompt and then given time to create something from it. Being kids, often times these would be gross out sessions or confessionals. Pictures of birds would become poems and pieces of music would become stories.
Some of the class would use this chance to criticize the prompts rather than use the time to create something.
It’s those people that were missing out. Because they became the author and instead of using the time and space given them every day to create something new, they took the chance to snipe and attack at the very thing they were supposed to be inspired by. In a way, they were inspired, but they failed to engage in the very task they were set out. They were asked to create, and instead they took their time to destroy. “They Chose Violence” so to speak.
This image is a good example of one of the prompts, which was a penguin. Some people wrote short stories about lost penguins, some about loneliness. There was a poem about how there was nothing but penguins.
When it came time to discuss the writing that day some of the class seized on the notion that the poem about the lack of other birds was the author talking about the conformist nature of High School (where we were) and Society as a whole. That the Poem was about how a lack of diversity was dangerous. Or that the Poet was embodying a lonely penguin, seeking something more.
They were all wrong about the authors intent. The Author just dashed it off in moments: “Penguins! Everywhere Penguins! No Great Auks, no Eagles, no sparrows. Everywhere I look all I see are Tuxedo Birds. Everywhere, there’s penguins!”
Yeah, it was short and easy to put meaning on. It also was “just as it was” there was no deeper meaning to it. So the class, when faced with the idea that “It just was a complaint about the penguins” got hostile.
They insisted that there was deeper meaning in it, especially given who the author was. I’m told that they thought the author was stoned more than they were sober at this period. Which in itself was amazing, because they were 100% straight-edge.
That’s the thing, we put our own meaning and own message in our media. We hang our own emotions on every hook a piece gives us to do so. So that we can decorate it with meaning for ourselves.
Over the last few weeks the local Dollarama (a Walmart Company?) has been stocking massive piles of Trade Paper Backs (TPB) so much so that I’ve already overrun my bookshelves and storage. I have a pile of Books on my bedside table FOR STORAGE. Not for reading. I’ve also got a stack in the Bathroom and a bunch that have just sort of found a home in one of my short bookshelves.
Usually, I would just read through them. Start on “book X” and read all the ones that are in the same series until done.
I’ve been keeping myself slow on these, mostly to string them out as long as possible. I wouldn’t normally buy (for example) a series of Thor books, but because they were so cheap I bought a big stack of them. I read Thor off an on, because the writing for Thor can get a bit “much”
All of that aside, I have weeks of reading ahead of me. Months of stories and years of memories. The problem with all that being the stack of straight novels piling up and the years of movies and TV shows I’ve avoided.
I finished “Destroy all Humans” last night.
I have too much Passive Media around I think. Also, I just turned 45, you should see my Collection of Transformers!
In the continuing “Liberals are the real Fascists” story that people have decided to just run with Reason essentially reprinted this article (https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Churchill-At-Skidmore-curiosity-might-get-you-15553968.php#photo-19749884)
This Reason article and the source article don’t contain any direct quotes from the students.
Anyone else think it’s odd that both articles contain zero direct quotes from anyone making the complaint? Like maybe there may be more to this that “He went to a Blue Lives Matter display”
Why would two different articles be made without a single direct quote from someone making the complaint?
There are quotes that are purported to be from people, but no direct quotes (there are direct quotes from students who are against his firing, so it’s not like Churchill didn’t reach out to Students)
Also, the articles state that his Wife is not employed by the school, but it’s clear from school sources that there are classes taught by the wife.
I’m concerned that there really is only one side being presented here and the Students are being portrayed as focused on a single event rather than even addressing their concerns directly.
On Balance; only the “free speech” of one party here is being defended.
Here’s one from a Student, take from it what you will, but at least is gives the Students themselves a voice that both linked articles don’t http://skidmorenews.com/new-blog/2020/8/31/opinion-the-petersons-amp-blue-lives-matter-students-reveal-a-pattern-of-racism-among-skidmore-faculty-and-staff
What happens when that boss is notoriously thin-skinned?
Here’s the same scenario we’ve seen play out over and over, Trump says something dangerous or stupid; a professional steps in, contradicts him publicly, and in about 20 days, they are out of work. At this juncture it’s a medical professional who is being asked to help deliver the tired rumblings of a man who has no idea what is going on at this point.
So, how long until Dr. Fauci is out of a job? I give it 20 days.
I’ve played “Fortnite: Save the World” for YEARS now and it’s not as good
That long title says it all, I used to play “Save the World” ALL the time, anyone who has seen me in game will recognize my banner as one of those ones that Epic gave us play-testers, I played the game before the deliver the payload mission was added, there was a time when outlanders had a neat “gravity bubble” power so the could get high like a ninja…
anyway, that aside to show me cred, I don’t like playing Save the World anymore, not like I used to, I played EVERY night for ages and even when I lost interest I’d try to play 99.9% of days (there have to be days away from the Internet)
So when I say “I don’t enjoy it anymore” that is saying something.
I started playing Battle Royale when I found out about the bases on the map, and the story missions and tasks have kept me playing
I used to spend HOURS in maps in STW just exploring, this is the level of commitment to STW I’m talking about and the level of goodwill that the STW team and EPIC have lost in me. I didn’t even bother with trying to get the spy weapons
Save the world used to be more than a wave shooter to me; but the game is just a borderlands in a bottle game now, and that’s what’s sending me to Battle Royale (never mind that the toxic players are like less than 1% of the player base now, so that’s nice)
So, in short, the Toxic player problem is mostly not a thing in BR (or it isn’t for me) I’ve loved the narrative in the current “season, whatever” and It’s a CRIME that I don’t look forward to Save the World everyday like I used to.
The Lobbers, by the way, were the worst thing of all the recent changes, having 20 or so bombs landing all the damn time in some missions? What?!?!?!
“I’m sick of how people have totally distorted what this is,” Colter had said a day before the vote. “For guys on the team, it’s no longer about having a voice. They’re not going to vote yes because they don’t want to tarnish their relationship with the school. I’ve heard concerns from the guys like we won’t get jobs, alumni won’t donate, coach Fitz might leave. None of that has to do with having a voice. It’s become about a fear. It’s saddening because that’s not what it’s about. There’s been so many variables added to the puzzle that shouldn’t be.”
— Deadspin: Kain Colter’s Union Battle Cost Him More Than He Ever Expected
I’ve lived through 10 recessions (or at least it feels like that) periods where speculators and money people go into panics and just tank the economy and the rest of the world, the people that buy things and make things and shift the dust around are left holding the bag. Over and over again. In the 80s when our Parents and Grandparents were getting on in age and had spent 30 years getting comfortable and being able to afford things like College and 2 Cars and so on the party came to an end for “Those of us in the Dust” as it were.
The Speculators were firmly in control again, the lessons from the 30s (the easy money, the universal speculation) had faded, the people who lived through that era were old, our Parents and Grandparents had been born in the Post World War 2 era boom that was never, ever going to end. Right?
Who needed Unions and Labor organizations? They were just keeping people from making as much money as possible; as much as they were worth. If you were worth more, why rely on a Union full of lazy, corrupt people to take care of what you could easily do o your own; right?
It’s far past time that North America looked at itself and said “why have there been more civilian shootings here than in Europe”
If we believe the news out of Europe it’s crawling with insane Jihadists with bombs, knives and guns who are killing with impunity. The UK is a desolate wasteland full of bullet-holes and France was burned to give glory to Allah.
That’s what we’re being told. So North Americas gun issues are like nothing compared to the savage times in the Old World.
But that’s not true, is it?
The Guns come from the ‘States and spread out, like a pandemic. They are everywhere, and always nearby. Like Spiders or Rats, infesting the Western World, a social disease that gives only the infected any pleasure and makes the rest of the world walk on eggshells, less they get shot by an open carrier of the condition.
Europe is less than 2000 miles from war-zones, but doesn’t find itself dealing with nigh weekly mass shootings. What excuse does North America have?
It’s when you look at the rest of the fandom
Published by NiteMayr on April 16, 2023It’s when I look at the people that surround Hunter S. Thompson with new eyes, the kind of guys who looked at the character he curated in his writing and the actual man and said, we see no difference in the two here.
I’ll tell you what, Hunter S. Thompson can write like a devil and his words snap and pop and sizzle on the page and in your ears and mind for weeks and months afterwords. “If only I could string together sentences like that man! Who could replace that mind who can take the mundane goings-on of a massive drug trip and turn it into such amazing prose?”
I still think his writing is one of the marvels of the modern age and we’ll do well to read his prose and his news pieces and opinion pieces and recognize that he lost hope in us as a species.
This sodden man, looked at humanity and said it wasn’t worth a toss of the dice.
Nihilism has never been good, or right, and it’s certainly no way to live a life. It’s certainly an ornate way to end it, though.